Letters to the Editor

School district should keep both feet on the scale

By Brad Jolly

Posted:
11/26/2012 03:51:01 PM MST

Updated:
11/26/2012 03:53:21 PM MST

Brad Jolly
(
LEWIS GEYER
)

With holiday feasts and parties approaching, many people are concerned about weight gain. Therefore, I offer this tip to help you achieve your desired weight: put only your left foot on the scale, leaving your right foot on the floor. By leaning more or less on your right foot, you can make your weight as low as you want it!

Unfortunately, this deceptive and counterproductive technique is exactly what that the St. Vrain Valley School District used to misinform the public about its own bloated financial "weight" in the recent election.

Because the recent election included tax increase proposals, the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights required informational notices on such proposals, including issue 3A, the mill levy override. It is already well-documented that the district misinformed voters that fiscal year spending increased from 2007-08 to 2011-12 by 23 percent instead of 30 percent. The district sent everybody a postcard acknowledging and correcting the error.

The district claims this was an honest mistake, but they do not explain how it happened. Either one person produced the information and nobody checked it, or multiple people failed to calculate a simple percentage correctly. Either way, I believe St. Vrain's claim that no ill intent was involved; neither a complete lack of review nor basic mathematical incompetence on the part of multiple people in the SVVSD would surprise.

However, the real problem is that the district simply used the wrong numbers in the first place! For example, they claimed that their total spending for fiscal year 2011-12 was roughly $199.5 million. This is simply fiction, as the SVVSD's own 2011-12 amended budget document shows (see page ii of the document at stvrain.k12.co.us/financial/budget/2012/amended.pdf).

The district's General Fund shows $199.9 million in budgeted expenditures, and this matches up reasonably well with the $199.5 million from the TABOR document. Unfortunately, the General Fund is only part of the budget. The district also spent $19.5 million in the Governmental Designated Purpose Grant Fund. It spent $8.2 million in the Nutrition Services Fund. The Capital Reserve Capital Projects Fund racked up $2.7 million, and the Bond Redemption Fund accounted for $35.4 million. Let us not forget the Special Activities Fund ($5.5 million) or the Building Fund ($0.8 million).

In addition to the "budgeted expenditures," the district also spends money in the form of "appropriated reserves." For example, the Capital Reserve Capital Projects Fund only had $2.7 million in revenue, but its expenses were nearly twice that amount ($5.3 million). Therefore, it pulled $2.6 million from its fund balance at the beginning of the year, and this extra spending shows up as an "appropriated reserve." In all, the SVVSD's total expenditures and appropriated reserves, as shown in the district's own 2011-12 amended budget, were $400 million, not $199.5 million. To be fair, some of the money spent in fiscal year 2011-12 was spent on capital items that will have long-term benefit value. For example, the building fund spent $96.3 million of appropriated reserves. It would have been entirely appropriate for the district to include an explanatory footnote describing this situation, but pretending that $96.3 million equals zero is absurd.

The district's desire to put only one foot on the scale is perfectly understandable; it must be incredibly embarrassing to produce such mediocre results with so much spending. Furthermore, the district completely failed to deliver the "educational excellence" promised in the 2008 mill levy override and bond election. Despite all of the extra money, St. Vrain's ACT and CSAP/TCAP test scores actually declined slightly relative to other districts since the two tax increases were passed in 2008.

The taxpaying public deserves to know the truth, regardless of how embarrassing it may be for the district. A 199-pound man may be in excellent health; a 400-pound man has a serious problem, and leaving a foot off the scale will only delay the day when he gets help and makes the changes he so desperately needs.

Brad Jolly is a longtime Longmont resident who advocates for improvement in public education.

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